Start the Halloween 'boo' in your neighborhood, workplace

Tuesday

Oct 25, 2011 at 12:01 AMOct 25, 2011 at 8:24 AM

Trick-or-treating and costume parties aren’t the only ways to celebrate Halloween. Many people are adopting the tradition of “booing.” To boo someone, anonymously drop off a treat, a poem and a “ghost” or sign (“I’ve been Booed!”) at the doorstep or workstation of a friend.

Kathryn Rem

Trick-or-treating and costume parties aren’t the only ways to celebrate Halloween. Many people are adopting the tradition of “booing.”

To boo someone, anonymously drop off a treat, a poem and a “ghost” or sign (“I’ve been Booed!”) at the doorstep or workstation of a friend. The treat often is a bag or basket filled with sweets. The friend posts the sign, so he or she isn’t booed again, and then boos two other people. Those two, in turn, each “boo” two others … and so on.

Debbie Hill learned about booing a few years ago when someone surreptitiously left a bag of goodies, a Halloween decoration, a poem and a “ghost” at her home in Pleasant Plains, Ill.

The ghost was for the front door, to signal that the home had been booed for the season.

“The poem would allude to the fact you only had a couple of days to boo someone else or you would be cursed for life or something like that,” she said.

“We always had to boo two people, I guess, in the event we booed someone that didn’t want to play. Hopefully, the second one would continue the booing.”

Close to Halloween, it was difficult to find a home in her neighborhood that hadn’t been booed, Hill said.

“You would have to drive around in the daytime to see who didn’t have a boo ghost, then you would sneak back out after dark to leave the treats. You always hoped the dogs, cats or raccoons didn’t find them before the people did.”

Although it can be fun, especially for children, it takes some time and effort. For Hill, the novelty wore off after several years and she stopped participating.

“We kept our boo ghost from the previous year and put it on our door to avoid the booing for that year. I know ... no fun, but it worked.”

Sharon Huck, of Springfield, Ill., and her teen nephew made an adventure out of booing a friend.

“We parked a half-block away. It was dark out. My nephew ran up to the door and left the bag. We laughed like we were in a getaway car,” said Huck, who plans to carry out the prank again this year.

Sometimes called “ghosting” or “the phantom,” the tradition usually is seen in neighborhoods, but it is now showing up in workplaces.

Signs and poems can be found at many online sites, including christmas.organizedhome.com and leladavidson.hubpages.com.